Monday, October 25th, 2004

Well, another night of no sleep. What is going on here? I don’t know if it’s still the traffic noise, or the copious amounts of çay I drink during each day, but sleeping in Ankara has been a serious bitch. It results in my being a mess in the morning, so I stay in bed longer. Maybe it’s some sort of vicious cycle that can only be broken by staying up for two days straight and then having a normal night of rest. Maybe I’ll try it this weekend?

After lounging in bed too long this morning, I went out and continued my search for cheap restaurants. And found another one. I huge chicken döner sandwich, complete with tons of veggies (including pickled hot peppers; what a taste!) and a nice glass of ayran for 2,000,000 TL ($1.35). I love it!

I then hoofed it across town to the Data Processing Center at AU’s Tandoğan campus. It was a half hour’s walk but nice after a full meal. This’ll be a nice place to be for a week. I actually have my own desk, fast internet, and many friendly people around, as well as bottomless glasses of çay! There’s a funny Kurdish woman who works in the tea room who is really nice to me, and always tries to get me to smoke cigarettes. The Data Processing Center, or BIM as it’s called here, is the IT central of Ankara University. They write custom software for things such as accounting, registration, scheduling, and whatnot. They manage and maintain the network for the school. They build and repair computers that are used here. They code and maintain the web page. And everything else really… it’s all the stuff that I studied at Goshen so it suits me well! Today there’s not much for me to do other than type away here at my computer. Hopefully tomorrow I’ll be able to go out and see what’s happening around the campus. It’s a good place to be; I’m happy to be here.

In other news, I spoke with dad, mom and Rachel today! I have a new phone number because my service with TelSim was crap. Now I’m with TurkCell, and can receive international calls! My number is 0537 527 4495. I don’t know what the country code is, what the process is, or anything really but feel free to try. Remember, I’m 8 hours ahead of you. If you need help email my mom at halderfamily@netins.net and she’ll sort you out, as she’s managed to connect.

Additionally, my friends Norah and Aaron are getting married! Yay! The wedding is soon and I’m not pleased that I cannot attend. If you want to see their website visit http://www.norahvsaaron.com and have a laugh. It’s really good.

***** UPDATE *****

Here are telephone instructions that my dad used to call me here in Turkey: I dialed 011 90 (0) 537 527 4495 - dropping the (0) for outside the country. So, I guess don’t dial the zero in parenthesis.